Fast & Furious
by Zephyranthus
Summary: Brian and Cora have had a peaceful life and things are going well for them until he decides to get involved with Arturo Braga. The past comes back to haunt Cora as she tries to dissuade Brian from pursuing the man. Brian's relentlessness forces Cora to make a decision that hurts them both and he is hurt by the consequences of it. Will their love be able to survive the changes?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I finally managed to get the sequel up! This takes place four years after the prelude. The first chapter's a little short, but enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Brian studied his files on Arturo Braga intently before sighing and leaning back in his seat. He was pretty much stuck with no leads whatsoever as of yet. He raised his hand and massaged his eyes, relaxing even more when a pair of hands descended onto his shoulders and massaged them with the right amount of pressure.

He dropped his hand from his eyes and the massaging stopped as he turned to face Coralie, his turquoise-eyed beauty.

"What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the very same thing," she retorted with a slight frown. "It's nearly three a.m. in the morning and you're awake, staring at a bunch of boring as hell files when you should be in bed with me. Asleep. Or doing other things that will require a lot of energy, hence, make you sleepy."

He smiled a little, "I was just thinking of a few things."

"Yeah. 'A few things' about work. I wouldn't mind it at all if you were thinking of me, but you're thinking about work. That, I mind," she said before sighing. "Aren't you coming to bed?"

"I will."

"Eventually," she added for him, knowing him well. "You can work tomorrow at the office. Home and the office are two separate and very different places, so don't combine the two and turn our home into an office. You go to the office to work on dreary FBI stuff and you come home to be with me," she said and grinned. "No overtime!"

He chuckled a little. He guessed that he could put it out of his mind for awhile and he was feeling pretty tired. Curling up in bed with Cora sounded wonderful to him too and was more pleasing than staring at files when there was nothing to go on for the moment.

"I guess."

"There's no guessing, mister. I work too, but you don't see me bringing my work home. We'd be having an alcohol party if I did."

He laughed again and smiled at her, "All right."

"So you're coming back to bed?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Good! Because I have trouble sleeping without you," she grinned and he got up.

"Well, we can't have that, now can we?"

She yawned, "No, we can't."

He leaned down and kissed her softly, "I'm sorry, Cora. Let's go to sleep."

She nodded and they went back to their bedroom, climbing back into bed with Cora snuggling into him, making him smile.

"I'm warning you. If you wake up and leave me alone in bed again at such an unholy time, I won't hesitate to chain you to the bed," she mumbled sleepily as he wrapped his arms around her.

He laughed, "Kinky, but I won't. Go back to sleep, Cora," he said, kissing her on the forehead.

"G'night, Brian."

"Night, Cora," he smiled.

She was gone quickly and it was understandable since she ended work later than he did and hers required much more energy than his did on a normal day since she did work in a bar.

The bar that they'd met in.

It was hard to believe they'd been together for four years already... Time seemed to pass by so fast when he was with her that he wanted more and more time with her.

They had gotten an apartment together and he had been reinstated as an FBI agent. He had gotten his life back together. If he hadn't met her... he would surely still be pining for Mia and possibly losing his grip on his life. To be without Cora... he definitely didn't want that. He got over Mia, but he didn't believe he would ever get over Cora if she ever left him.

She snuggled closer to him, making him smile again and he too went to sleep.

* * *

"Have a good day at work, all right? Try not to drown yourself in paperwork. And if you have a field job, don't get yourself killed," she smiled cheerfully before giving him a good luck kiss.

"Thanks, though a simple 'be careful' would have been good enough," he said, making her laugh. "I won't though. Get killed, I mean."

"I know you won't and I always expect you to come back to me. You're like Superman or something, though without the ridiculously red underwear on the outside, the tight suits and all that jazz,"she giggled, fixing his tie for him.

"Thanks, Cora," he smiled. "I'll be seeing you for lunch later then?"

"Definitely. I'll be there to make your colleagues jealous."

"For sure," he laughed. "Then I'll see you later."

"Yup."

She saw him off and sat back down in the chair, recalling his files from the night before. Cora swallowed hard.

"The fuck do I do now?" she sighed, running a hand through her hair.

Of all the people for Brian to want to involve himself with... why Arturo Braga? Couldn't it have been anyone else but him? Cora knew she couldn't run from her past any longer.

Her life had been so blissful.

However, she understood that she couldn't run from her past any longer. No, she had known from the very beginning that it was only a matter of tine before her past came back to bite her in the ass.

Perhaps if she could draw Brian from Braga, then things could remain the way it was.

She wanted to be naïve.

* * *

**Author's note: Please review!**


	2. Important Update

_**Dear Readers,**_

_**Before you panic, this is not an announcement to tell you that I'll be discontinuing this story. I never ever thought I would ever dedicate a page to an announcement. I just managed to get to a computer and have enough time to write up this announcement. I know I haven't been active for awhile and I've left my stories on cliffhangers, but it can't be helped. My computer crashed. And I would use the ones in school… if they weren't all infected with a virus (yeah, kinda dumb and impossible to believe, but it's true. I would know, it was announced on the school website and our thumb drives with our proposals were wiped clean).**_

_**I'm saving up for a laptop now and I'll be sneaking onto my mother's laptop to work on my stories and post them. In the meantime, I'll review my previous chapters and work on them to make them better because I do believe that my writing has improved a bit since chapter one and yes, I'll make the chapters much longer for your satisfaction.**_

_**I don't update often already, so this might be a bit of a turn off to some of you, but please bear with me. I just want you to know that your support is important to me and I haven't lost my interest in my stories. I'll be putting my darndest best into working on them without a computer and revamping the previous chapters… and sneaking onto my mother's computer when she's not looking and updating them.**_

_****Here's a brief rundown of what I'll be doing or changing or both:**_

_**To Love Thy Neighbour – There's a bunch of stuff I'd like to redo with the previous chapters to give the story more life and when I do redo it, I'll update you in a chapter post.**_

_**To Love An Immortal – Yeah, I know. Really slow updates. I watch True Blood and write this and truthfully, I should be updating this much faster than my other works, so I'll have to work on my timings.**_

_**Fast & Furious – God, I'm stuck at chapter 1 and chapter 2 onwards is on my phone… I'll get on someone's computer to get some stuff checked and then update it ASAP.**_

_**Thank you always,**_

_**Zephy**_


	3. Chapter 2

_**Author's Note: Sorry it took so long. Some damned shortcut virus affected my thumb drive, but I managed to get around it and format the drive while saving my files. I'm so unlucky with all these viruses. Anyway, I'm back! Somewhat. Still don't really have a permanent computer.**_

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Hank popped up beside him. "O'Conner, you found anything?"

He sighed, dropping his pen on the exhausting pile of papers. "Nothing yet. Still at a dead end."

"Tough luck. Braga's no easy fish."

Leaning back in his seat, he ran his hand over his face, finally feeling the exhaustion catching up with him. "I know. I was poring over these papers last night and I still came up with nothing."

"You pulled an all-nighter? Daaaamn."

Hank hated doing overtime and avoided it unless absolutely necessary and most of the time, it wasn't necessary. Cora had described him as a guy who hated doing more than was necessary, unless he felt that there was a damned good reason to.

"No, Cora woke up and got me to go back to bed," he chuckled with a smile curving his lips. "She doesn't like it when I bring work home. Cora firmly believes that when I'm home, I should be spending time with her and I'm not gonna argue with that."

"I bet that you'd never win an argument against her."

"And you would win that bet." He laughed. "I'm naturally weak against her. No, I have absolutely no immunity when it comes to Cora. I never have and probably never will win an argument against her."

Oh, he had tried all right, especially after she got badly harassed by one of her patrons and he insisted on picking her up from work every day. He thought he had the chance to win... until she took off her shirt and bared her breasts to him, effectively bringing the discussion to a complete close. Yeah, she had played dirty and he was a sucker for it. She won most of their _discussions_ by simply pouting and giving him a look bordering on the very fine line between cute and sexy, that only she seemed capable of pulling off.

Hank laughed out loud. "Wow, you are a sucker for her!"

"She plays dirty."

"What kind of dirty?" Hank asked with a raised brow, intrigued.

He laughed. "Gotta be discreet about it, man."

His colleague raised his hands up in surrender. "I got it, I got it. It's bedroom stuff so you can't talk about it. What happens in the bedroom happens in the bedroom."

He smirked. "Not just in the bedroom."

Hank looked slightly peeved. "Damn, man! I'm already envious enough. I don't need to know that you and your girl have a very active sex life."

Laughing, he pat his friend on the shoulder. "What happened to that nice girl you said you met?"

His friend visibly shuddered and he raised a brow. "She was into some freaky stuff. I thought it'd be best to back out of that one."

He winced at the thought of what freaky Hank meant, but he refrained from asking, not wanting the details. "Ouch."

Hank had a smug look on his face after a moment.

"What's that look for?" he asked, wary.

"So..." Hank began with a mischievous look. You gonna pop the question to Cora or what?"

"What?"

"You know, pop THE question," Hank said quietly and he stared at him in confusion and Hank stared before sighing. "You gonna ask her to marry you?"

"Ohhh, oh," he said, realization dawning.

"What's that supposed to mean? You're not going to?"

He smiled softly. "I will propose. Just not yet."

"Come on, man, you've been together for four years now. Isn't it time to pop the question? If you're not gonna ask her now, then when?"

Hank did have a point. He couldn't think of a future without Cora, so what the hell was holding him back from asking her to marry him?

A new voice cut into the conversation. "Ask her what?"

They jumped in surprise and he looked past Hank to find Cora in a pair of black jeans and a sleeveless blue blouse with a pair of heels. Hank took a deep breath, his hand over his heart.

"Shit! You scared the hell out of us, Cora!" Hank gasped and his girlfriend grinned.

"Two FBI agents getting scared over something like this? Should I be worried about leaving the house and walking the streets?" she teased and Hank snorted.

"Har, har," Hank said.

"Like that ever stopped you," he said with a smile and she nodded, placing her bag on his table.

"True," she said, grinning and placed her hands on his shoulders, leaning down to press a soft kiss to his lips. "Hey, babe."

"Hey," he murmured against her lips.

"God, you two," Hank groaned.

"So what question did you need to ask someone?" she inquired, a suspicious look on her face.

Hank grinned. "I'll leave you two to talk about it between yourselves. I'm outta here."

"Coward," he muttered as he watched his friend escape.

"Are you gay?"

"What? No! Cora!"

They had been together for four years, so why would she even think he was gay?

She laughed and tugged him up from his seat.

"I'm just kidding, but that was the worst news I could think of." She grabbed her bag, handing him his blazer. "Whatever you have to tell me, let's talk about it over lunch, all right? I'm starving."

"Yeah," he said, smiling.

He slipped his blazer on and they both left the office, Cora returning a few greetings to his other colleagues. Cora enjoyed coming by his office and he knew that it was all for him. He had a hard time fitting in after returning to law enforcement, considering he had been on the other side of the law for a while and he did help a wanted man escape. He had ignored it all, trying his best at work and Cora would drop by and have lunch with him, knowing that he needed her support when everyone was against him.

"How do you get in so easily all the time?"

"I make friends with everyone," she winked, waving to the security guards who gave her bright smiles and waved back. "It helps. A lot."

He wrapped his arm around her waist, laughing as they exited the building. "You're amazing."

"I know, but thanks, I like hearing it."

"I know you do."

He held her hand firmly in his, thankful for Cora.

* * *

"So…" Cora began, not taking her eyes off her pasta. "What were you and Hank talking about?"

"It's nothing. We were just joking around a little."

She raised her head, eyeing him, not believing a single word. "Uh huh. You do know that I don't believe you for a second, right?"

He chuckled. "It's really nothing. Hank was just being Hank and badgering me about something."

She gave him 'that' look again, that made him want to spill everything. "I'm curious… but I'll leave it be. It's gotta be something important if you're hiding it from me."

_You have no idea._

"I'll tell you soon, babe. Really soon."

_Just ask her._

"Promise?"

"I promise."

She grinned. "All right, I'm appeased."

"You know I can never keep secrets from you too long," he said and Cora visibly stilled before she recovered and smiled softly at him.

"I know," she said quietly.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. "Did something happen?"

Cora looked surprised and immediately, she shook her head. "No, nothing out of the ordinary happened."

His protective instincts surfaced at the thought of any danger befalling his girlfriend. "Are you sure?"

She gave him a tender smile and touched his hand. "I guess I'm just feeling a little under the weather, that's all. Don't worry about it."

"How can I not be worried?" he said, smiling. "Maybe you should take the night off and rest at home. The bar can do without you for a night or two. Probably. And I'll come home early."

"Yeah, I guess I could… and I haven't had an off day in a couple of months."

"I'll get takeaway for dinner. Do you feel like having anything in particular?"

"Chinese!"

He laughed at her cheerful reply. "Chinese it is."

* * *

Brian had taken her home after their lunch and she dropped her keys in the basket. She was walking into the living room when her eyes landed on the photo frames, halting her. Cora reached out to one of the photo frames that had a picture of her and Brian that was taken when they had taken a drive to New Orleans just a year ago for the heck of it. They'd been dancing when some guy decided they looked pretty and took a picture of them. She hadn't minded and the guy gave them a copy of the photo too.

Even though it wasn't exactly a special occasion, the photo was still special to her. It was a candid photo, taken without them knowing, and even from the photo, she could see how happy they were. It felt like a stab in the heart when he had been so genuine when he said that he could never keep secrets from her.

God, how she wished she could do the same for him. She wished she could tell him everything, but what if she lost him?

Her tears fell for the first time in a long time. She loved Brian. She really, truly, deeply loved him and it hurt. It hurt to keep her past from him.

And she didn't know what he'd do if he knew…

She'd been a lie.

* * *

_**Author's Note: This is kind of a filler chapter that is suppose to set the stage for the real beginning of the story. It's a transition chapter between Brian and Cora's normal every day life and the foreboding stuff. Reviews are appreciated!  
**_


End file.
